


What You Forgot (I remember all too well)

by MoMoMomma



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Far Cry: New Dawn Spoilers, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:40:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25061035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoMoMomma/pseuds/MoMoMomma
Summary: Joseph isn't Joseph for a while. And Rook's almost scared of how much he likes not-Joseph. But sometimes moments of weakness lead to salvation.
Relationships: Male Deputy | Judge/Joseph Seed
Comments: 2
Kudos: 72





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [9shadowcat9](https://archiveofourown.org/users/9shadowcat9/gifts).



> The first chapter takes place during FC5, the second during New Dawn following a "Rook and Joseph in the bunker" ending. Enjoy!

Someone is knocking on the door. Someone should _not_ be knocking on the door because Rook is holed up in one of his few secret spots where he goes to rest. The cult doesn’t know about them--going by the lack of being shot at while he sleeps--and the Resistance doesn’t know about them because “please, for the love of god, let me rest for a couple hours.”

And yet. There’s a steady rap against the front door, knuckles on wood. Polite but insistent.

Rook tips himself off the couch, standing on legs that immediately protest his weight, and calls out a “coming!” that sounds exhausted even to his own ears. The knocking stops and Rook is fully prepared to open the door to someone else needing his help. Someone needing rescue or supplies or something that the cult has taken that they want back.

He’s not expecting Joseph Seed, one lens missing from his always present glasses, hair almost falling out of his tie, once white shirt filthy like he went rolling in the dirt.

“What the--”

“I’m very sorry to bother you.” Joseph clasps his hands in front of him, dips his head slightly. “But I just woke up and I’m...not certain where I am?”

Rook goggles at him, is fairly sure he looks like a total moron. Joseph waits patiently, shifting back and forth on his feet when Rook slowly slides his gaze away from his face and past. There’s no Peggies loitering in the trees waiting to spring a trap. The cabin is back in the woods and Peaches is patrolling, he would have heard something if she’d gotten somehow snuck up on.

What the fuck is going on?

“Uh...alright. Come in? I guess?”

“You’re very kind.” Joseph hurries inside, rubbing his palms over his biceps like he’s cold despite the warm Montana summer. “Thank you. I wandered from the road hoping I might find someone. Well… _ran_ from the road, I should say.”

“You ran?”

Rook’s going on instinct and not a lot else. Grabbing his med pack from the couch he’d been resting on and gesturing for Joseph to sit in its place. He complies easily, eyes darting around as Rook kneels in front of him and starts looking for a penlight.

“There were...people? Bodies, I think?” Joseph shudders and his voice drops. “Just left on the side of the road. Left for dead. I didn’t want to meet whatever left them there. I hope their souls can rest in peace.”

Rook tips his head, considers Joseph closely for a sharp second. He seems truly shaken, still holding himself with his elbows planted on his knees. Clearly shocked. Or maybe _in_ shock. It’s a far cry from the overconfident preacher who promised Hell on Earth when Rook tried to arrest him a few months ago.

“Can you look at my ear here?” Rook taps and Joseph is compliant, straightening from the protective curl. “So you just...woke up on the road? In a car or?”

“No, not in a car. Just...awoke. I was lying on my back in a ditch.” Joseph’s voice drops to a hush as Rook takes in the response of his pupils. “I think...I think maybe I was attacked too? And maybe they thought I was dead? So they just...left me.”

“Are you injured anywhere?”

His pupils aren’t reacting like they would for a concussion. But there’s a suspicious scent on him now that Rook’s close enough, familiar in the way that the smell of blood and gunpowder is now familiar. And the way his irises are little more than pinpricks is reminiscent of Angels who fell into the Bliss and let it sink deeper than skin.

“No. I don’t...I don’t think so?” Joseph starts moving his hands over himself again, pulling at the collar of his shirt, looking down inside of it. “I...oh...my God.”

Fuck. Joseph lets go of his shirt like it burned him, eyes snapping to Rook’s as he starts shaking.

“There’s a tattoo...tattoos. And I think they, think someone--” Joseph swallows thickly, voice a broken whisper. “I think someone _carved_ something into me.”

Oh boy. This is so far beyond not good.

Either Joseph is a very convincing actor or...something bad happened in the Bliss.

“Okay. Let’s just relax, alright? Breathe with me.” Rook settles back onto his ass, crosses his legs, and tries to breathe deeply.

Joseph copies after a few long moments but it’s clearly a struggle. Not that Rook really blames him. If he woke up in a ditch with a Biblical sin carved into him...well, to be fair, he’d just think John got ahold of him recently. Which speaks to how fucking weird Rook’s life has become that that scenario wouldn’t even cause anything other than mild annoyance.

“What’s the last thing you remember? Before you woke up...in a ditch.” Rook finishes with a wince when Joseph’s eyes threaten to tear up, glassy and glistening.

“I remember...I’d gone back to Georgia. To Rome, where I grew up. I’m looking for my brothers.”

“Well, right now you’re in Hope County, Montana.”

“I must’ve found a hint or...or something. I haven’t seen John or Jacob in...years. God only knows where they could both be.” Joseph tosses his glasses aside, the view of him casually rejecting something so important to the character of the Father sending Rook reeling for a moment. “Do you think--maybe you’ve seen them? John is...he’d be in his early thirties? I’d heard he went to college, became a lawyer. And Jacob is a soldier--I assume still a soldier. Sometimes he would send me letters but they...I haven’t gotten one in a very long time.”

Joseph scrubs his hands over his face, an air of exhaustion around the entirety of him.

“John is...sweet? A bit quiet. Shy, mostly. And Jacob is protective, wildly so. A redhead with the temper to match but he can be gentle as well.”

Rook tries to match the descriptions to the men who are constantly trying to murder or torture him and comes up short. He knew Joseph couldn’t see his brothers in the same light everyone else in Hope County did but to hear him describe them...Rook might’ve liked them. In another life.

“Are you...a religious man?”

What a loaded fucking question. Posed innocently enough but just the thought of discussing religion with Joseph Seed, while he’s still trying to apply the words “sweet” and “gentle” to John and Jacob, makes Rook shove to his feet.

“No. I’m not.”

“Ah. I think this may be....a punishment.” There’s something very hollow in Joseph’s voice that Rook is refusing to touch with a ten foot pole. “I’m not--I was _raised_ religious. And this is just...a very fitting sort of punishment.”

Rook remembers a cage and a story, real or not, that made his stomach churn and clenches his fists, looks away. If this is punishment, Joseph’s getting off real fucking easy. Rook is more a fan of the “fire and brimstone” punishments. Losing his memory seems...almost like a gift.

One Rook sort of wishes he’d gotten instead.

“Punishment or not, we can’t stay here.”

“Of course.” Joseph seems to understand how freaked out Rook is, slowly rising and nodding, looking around. “If those people are still out there...it’s not safe. I might have endangered you just coming here.”

“Oh, don’t worry.” Rook slings his med pack back on with a grim sort of smile that makes Joseph’s eyes go wide. “I’d say, on the whole? I’m more dangerous than they are.”

.O.

He takes him to Fall’s End. Mostly because all the other options are likely to get both of them shot on sight. It takes one very coded radio call to Jerome--which mostly involves Rook telling him he has a delivery and to _please_ keep his weapon holstered when he gets it--but he manages to smuggle Joseph into the church with little fanfare.

Which is about as far as he gets with no complications. Because nothing can be easy for Rook.

“He doesn’t know!” Rook holds his hands up, stares down the barrel at Jerome’s shotgun as Joseph clings to the back of his shirt. “Jerome! He doesn’t remember!”

“A devil lies as easily as an angel sings.” Jerome’s steady, gun pointed just over Rook’s shoulder as Joseph makes a soft noise of pain. “Do not be swayed, Deputy.”

Rook isn’t sure why his brain is insisting that Joseph be kept away from the truth. After all the pain and devastation he’s wrought upon the county, some payback is in order. But the way he holds onto Rook, cowers behind him--rightly so because apparently Jerome just forgot or ignored Rook’s plea to keep the guns away--there’s a vulnerability there that Rook can’t throw to the wolves, metaphorical or not.

“I swear on my life. He has no idea. He doesn’t even remember coming to Hope County.”

Jerome wavers--thank God--the barrel dipping just slightly as he peers over Rook’s shoulder.

“Is that true?”

“I-I don’t--” Joseph seems to square himself, despite still being tucked behind Rook’s bulk. “The last thing I remember is being in Georgia. I’ve no idea how I got to where I am or what I’ve done to have guns drawn on me.”

Rook would be more impressed if Jerome wasn’t still pointing a gun in his general direction. Joseph is remarkably calm under pressure, though he’d have to be given the path he’s chosen. His hands are still grasping the back of Rook’s shirt, balling it up in his fists, but he’s peeking over Rook’s shoulder and seems to be ready to try and explain himself.

If he could. Which he can’t because the _fucking_ Bliss.

“What happened, Deputy?”

“I don’t know.” Rook answers honestly, scrubbing his hands down his face as Jerome finally lowers the gun to his side. “I found him in the Valley. Well, he found me. Said he woke up in a ditch, no memory past that. I think he wandered into a bad batch of the Bliss and it did something to his brain.”

Rook locks eyes with Jerome, tries to put emphasis into his words subtly enough it won’t make Joseph startle.

“He doesn’t even remember who carved sins into him.”

Jerome’s brows dip so low they nearly disappear behind the rim of his glasses and there’s a moment where he surveys Rook. Looks him over like he does when he’s about to drag him off for rest or food, demand he take care of himself. Measures the exhaustion in his body and the truth of whatever’s coming out of his mouth--which is usually just defenses that he can keep going and not collapse mid-firefight.

So….lies, essentially.

“Bringing him here wasn’t the smartest idea, Rook.”

“Where else was I supposed to go?” Rook asks helplessly, waving his hands in an open gesture. “If you have ideas, I’m all ears. But I needed someplace safe and a place to think.”

“Am I not permitted here?” Joseph seems to be a bit more bold without a shotgun shoved in his face, stepping out from behind Rook with a worried frown. “Am I...was I excommunicated? A church’s doors should always be open.”

_There’s_ the Joseph Rook has come to know. Just a little judge-y, good Georgia manners laced with some heavy-handed overtures. Even Jerome looks irritated, muscle in his jaw twitching.

“You’re not the most popular man around these parts, Mr. Seed.”

Joseph’s mouth opens and Rook pounces before this can spiral out of hand. He doesn’t want Joseph to know the truth, not yet. Doesn’t want to know what the knowledge will do to a man who still looks like he’ll shake apart at the first thing to startle him.

“Look, you’re new. This is a small town. People are distrustful. Especially with the...uh...Peggies running around.”

“Peggies?” Joseph tries the word, one hand drifting to his chest, up towards the collarbone where Rook knows he’s got Sloth carved deep and mean. “Are those the people that--are they the ones leaving bodies by the road like animals?”

“They’re bad people.” Rook agrees, though he’s not sure if all of them are bad or just following orders.

Still, following bad orders has to beget some sort of responsibility to those orders. Or something like that. He’ll debate moral obligations of right and wrong when he’s had some caffeine and some sleep.

“And I’ve done something to...anger them?”

“Literally everyone who stands in their way pisses them off.” Rook should know, he’s in their way more often than not. “Look, Jerome, can I take him into a back room? We both need rest. We won’t stay long, just...please.”

Jerome almost looks like he wants to say no. But he is, above all else, a good man. He sighs heavily, waves a hand towards the back behind the pulpit--or what’s left of it.

“There’s a recovery room back there. Just...keep him out of sight.”

Rook plods towards the inconspicuous door obediently, Joseph trailing behind after a moment. He lets out a sigh the moment the door closes them in together, Joseph frowning at him as Rook sits down heavily on the cot there, head in his hands.

“This is bothersome for you.”

“My life is bothersome lately.” Rook says wearily, jerking back when gentle hands grasp his forearms.

Joseph is kneeling in front of him, features twisted into sympathy. He’s so much more...exposed without the glasses. Eyes sharp and such a clear blue Rook can understand how people get lost in them. There’s a kindness to his face, one of pity, and it’s all too easy to get why the followers of Eden’s Gate revere Joseph as some sort of savior.

He looks like he _wants_ to save Rook. Wants to prevent anything that could hurt him. Concern and care in equal measure.

“If this is too difficult...if this makes your life more difficult...you have no obligation to me. I will be fine, I have been fine for many years now. Perhaps eventually I will regain whatever memories I have lost, but in the meantime, you needn’t worry yourself unnecessarily trying to protect me.”

“Joseph, it’s not--” Rook blows out a weary breath. “It’s not that easy. When I say you’re not the most popular man around these parts, I mean it. There’s a lot of people who wouldn’t hesitate like Jerome did. Who’d shoot you on sight.”

Joseph looks startled and then contemplative. Re-aligning the world in his head for a long moment before his eyes break the hold and look away from Rook. Down at the ground.

“Did I do something terrible?”

Rook doesn’t answer. And that, he supposes, is answer enough.

.O.

“Joseph! What the hell are you _doing_?!”

Rook didn’t think Joseph would ever startle easy. He always seems so controlled and calm. But he nearly throws his clipboard in the air, curling in on himself as he turns towards Rook, hip knocking hard into the lowered tailgate of the truck. Rook holds his hands up, freezes in place as Joseph braces a hand on the gate like he’s prepared to scramble backwards into the bed if need be.

“Whoa, hey, hey, sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“You don’t make much noise.” Joseph grumbles lightly, cheeks still a touch too pale and hands shaky as he rights himself. “I’m tempted to request you wear a bell, Rook. But I suppose that would make you less effective in your fight against the Peggies.”

The word still sounds odd on Joseph’s tongue but it’s only been a couple days since he came knocking on Rook’s hideout. He still doesn’t remember anything and there’s a restlessness to him now, like the lack of memory is finally starting to grate in the worst of ways.

He bends, scoops up his clipboard from the dirt and gestures almost guiltily towards the truck.

“Are you...taking inventory?”

“Everyone around here seems so concerned with what they have and what they lack.” Joseph confirms, taking the clipboard back with a nod. “I thought I would help. I cannot simply sit idly by if there are people out there trying to take from these good people.”

He hesitates, glances over Rook’s shoulder at the church behind him and then out the metal fence at his left.

“I’ve been careful to stay out of sight. No one knows I’m here.”

Of that, Rook’s certain. Though that’s mostly because anyone could stare at Joseph right now and probably not recognize him. Jerome must’ve found him a change of clothes. Without the glasses and with his hair down, knitted cap pulled on over top it, and just some plain jeans and a Hope County Cougars shirt, Joseph looks like any other Resistance member. Just anyone else trying to survive Hope County.

Almost attractive, but Rook is definitely not going to consider that passing thought as anything more than delirium from lack of sleep.

“You don’t have to do anything. I’m working on finding you some answers, figuring out what happened. You can just wait.”

Joseph snorts but it’s not derisive.

“I appreciate the sentiment, Rook, but I spent a good portion of my life waiting for someone to rescue me. I’m far past being a damsel in distress. If I can be useful, if I can _do_ something, maybe even rescue others? I’m going to.”

Right. Rook knows a little, bits and pieces from the Book of Joseph that he finds lying around at Outposts. Enough to know Joseph didn’t exactly come from the best sort of upbringing. Hoping against hope for rescue sounds so heartbreaking Rook almost understands why Joseph goes looking for the downtrodden and beaten to join the cult.

But the logical part of his brain hisses those people are vulnerable, more easily swayed, and _that_ is why Joseph targets them. Refuses to allow him to see Joseph’s actions, even the smallest ones, as benign.

“Though...I had a thought?”

“What? Yeah.” Rook shakes himself out of his thoughts at the sight of Joseph’s frown. “What’s your thought?”

“Deputy Rook...you look exhausted. I can save my ideas for after you’ve had sleep.” Joseph moves in close and Rook’s worried, for a moment, he’s going to try and press their foreheads together. Get as uncomfortably close as he used to.

But he leaves a foot of space between them and merely contemplates Rook with the clipboard held to his chest.

“You fight so hard and so often. Please, get some rest.”

“No, no, I’m okay.” Rook lies, sinking into the exhaustion in his bones and the aches in various places he’s gathered over the day.

He won’t wander too far from the Valley now, or Fall’s End. Wants to be close by in case Joseph suddenly remembers everything and goes nuclear right in the middle of a safe space for the Resistance. Rook knows he’s got to be making John suspicious, probably Faith and Jacob too since nothing in their areas has exploded anytime recently.

But surprisingly--or rather unsurprisingly--he’s gotten no hissed threats over the radio. No promises to make him bleed for causing trouble. Rook imagines by now the whole of Eden’s Gate knows Joseph has gone missing and that’s surely a bigger priority than one very annoying Deputy.

“Well...if you’re certain…” Joseph hedges, clearly not believing him but continuing at Rook’s nod and gesture to speak. “I thought maybe you could look up Jacob and John in your database? I must’ve come here following some sort of trail. Surely they at least passed through here. Or, if not, perhaps you have access to other databases? You could, I hope, at least find out where they live?”

Oh.

Oh no.

Rook feels himself grimace, can’t hide the panic on his face as he listens. Normally, he’d absolutely be able to do what Joseph’s asking. Just plug the names into the computer and see what pops up. But with the cult locking down everything from cell signal to internet access, nothing gets in or out of Hope County right now.

“Ah...I could…” Rook rubs at his nape as Joseph’s shoulders fall with a soft noise. “But the...uh...the Peggies…”

“I suppose if you wanted to isolate a county, communication to the outside world would be the first thing to take care of.”

It’s honestly scary how logical Joseph is. And then Rook remembers these idle thoughts are probably exactly what Joseph was thinking when he locked down a good chunk of the state for his cult and it becomes _terrifying_.

“Yeah.” Rook drags the word out until Joseph shakes his head and pastes on a clearly fake smile. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright. You are limited by the actions of others. I hold no blame for you.”

Except when he remembers, he’s going to hold a lot of blame for Rook. And he’s definitely not going to think about how much he’ll have to bleed for that blame right now.

Joseph reaches out, tentative and then more bold when his fingers make contact with Rook’s bicep without a flinch or move to stop him. He squeezes once, as infinitely gentle as his expression, thumb rubbing softly for a moment.

“Please, go rest, Rook. I will continue my task here and then join you. I promise to stay out of sight.”

He doesn’t want to go. Especially not when Joseph looks as beaten and sad as he does. But Rook turns on his heel, makes his way into the church and flops down onto the cot regardless. Doesn’t even bother kicking off his shoes or jacket on the way.

Joseph is a complication he’s not sure how to handle. And he’s _really_ not sure how to handle melding the impressions in his mind of an insane cult leader with the sort of weary and almost broken man Joseph seems right now.

All of it is best considered after a lot of sleep.

.O.

Really, Rook should stop being surprised that things don’t work out well for him. At this point, it’s a little less like God is purposefully testing him and more like he took God’s lunch money one day in Elementary school and now God is stalking him around years later planning his revenge.

He had a _plan_. It was a fairly good plan, or so he’d thought. Joseph’s memory hadn’t budged and it was going on over a week. Rook was justified in trying something a little outlandish to try and get it to stop.

Put the preacher behind the pulpit with a Bible. A very simple plan. A very _good_ plan, if a little reckless because it was thought up during a 48 hour no-sleep assault on every silo he saw because Cheeseburger ran headfirst into one and Rook was a little overprotective.

Except Rook with no sleep didn’t really consider how the man raised by someone even more insane about religion than him would take it. He’d honestly thought Joseph might just go into sermon-mode instinctively. Start talking about sin and the end of times and waving his hands around like he did in the church so many nights ago.

Maybe it was because it was just him in the audience. Maybe Joseph’s rantings and ravings require a bigger scale to be as dramatic as they typically are.

He didn’t expect Joseph to have a full-blown panic attack. Fall from his feet to the ground and curl into a ball of hyperventilation and sobs. Flinch away from Rook’s hands while muttering something religious about punishment and the wicked.

It’s more than understandable that Joseph would bolt. Rook’s honestly lucky he didn’t run right out the church doors and into the main thoroughfare that day. He snuck out sometime during the night, Rook waking up to cold sheets beside him and a panic in his veins that rivaled Jacob’s stupid song starting up in his head.

Which is why Rook is stomping through the woods at ass o’clock in the morning. The sun is barely over the horizon, casting stupid shadows everywhere. Some hunter had mentioned they saw someone matching his hurried description head North and Rook’s been working his way through the trees ever since. He’s exhausted already and he’s starving and he’s...more than a little worried.

Joseph without the madness is disconcertingly sweet. Hovering over him, demanding he eat and patching up some of his wounds in the downtime. Rook would be lying if he didn’t say a part of him was almost attracted to the man now.

He wants to call out for him, shout Joseph’s name until he’s startling birds off the trees in the hopes of finding him faster. Every single second that ticks by is a second Joseph could be found by the wrong people. By the cult or his brothers--or worse, Resistance members who wouldn’t hesitate in putting a bullet right into his skull.

Which would technically cure the memory issues but not at all in the way Rook had been hoping.

But he can’t. Everything about this has to be done in quiet. He didn’t even let Jerome or Mary May know where he was heading when he bolted from Fall’s End. If either of them found out Joseph went running, they’re going to assume the worst and there’s nothing Rook can do to stop it. No one trusts Joseph, even when he’s trying to help as best he can, and Rook can see how it’s been wearing on him.

He gets it. He really does. He’s run around half the damn county with people shouting all sorts of shit at him. It’s...it gets to be too much after a while.

If Rook had feelings left, they’d probably be pretty hurt.

He ducks behind a tree, screeches to a halt when he hears voices. He’s just above a road, can hear a car idling under the conversation. Rook takes a chance, leans out and looks down, and feels his stomach drop out so fast he wants to throw up.

Joseph’s holding onto Jacob--who looks a bit like he might just join Rook in re-meeting his lunch. John looks equally frazzled, twitchy against the hood of the truck like he doesn’t know how to handle any of this.

No one knows how. This is why he wanted Joseph to stay with him. Stay put.

“I can’t believe--my god, it’s been so long.” Joseph’s voice is cracked like he’s been crying, and Rook imagines he probably has been. “I’ve missed you both so much! Jacob, god, what happened to you overseas? Are you alright? Are you out now? And John--the tattoos are so beautiful. Is being a lawyer going well? Are you enjoying it?”

Rook shifts forward and it’s his downfall. He kicks a rock that goes tumbling down, down, until it hits the road and Jacob’s eyes snap up like a wolf scenting blood. He scowls, steps away from Joseph, and rests a hand on his gun at his hip.

“Get down here, Deputy. Now.”

Rook slides down, albeit a little less controlled than he would have liked, but manages to not end in a heap at the bottom. He’s got a few leaves and bits of grass stuck to him, ground into his jeans, but he straightens with a sort of solemn nod.

“Jacob. John.”

“Rook!” Joseph turns with a grin, rushes over to him to grab him by the wrists. “I found my brothers! I was wandering to clear my head and--I knew they had to be here!”

He yanks Rook into a hug, not the bullshit sort of forehead press hugs, but a real hug. Chest to chest, his arms wrapped around Rook’s body to squeeze tight.

“I’m so sorry for rushing off. But look at what it wrought!”

He gestures broadly to his brothers when he lets go and Rook smiles weakly, nods along at John and Jacob’s gobsmacked expressions.

“Joseph...who is Rook?” John waves a hand when Joseph makes a confused noise. “No, no, we know Deputy Wylde very well. Who is he to _you_?”

“Rook protected me. Rescued me from the forest when I awoke and took me someplace safe. He’s been looking after me as I try to regain whatever I’ve lost.”

“How did you lose anything?” Jacob doesn’t direct the question at Joseph, looking straight at Rook instead.

“Bad Bliss, I think? He reeked of it when I found him and pupil response was similar.”

“He’d said he was going to check on something new Faith had cooked up.” Jacob grunts, clearly showing what he thought of the whole thing to begin with. “Should’ve just insisted he send some Chosen.”

“Chosen what?”

“It’s not important.” John interjects smoothly, Joseph’s frown fading as he drifts forward to clap a hand onto his shoulder. “We should all take this somewhere more private. My house, I think.”

“Absolutely fucking not.”

Rook takes a step back, watches Jacob and John go for their guns in unison. And then freeze when Joseph steps between them, back to his brothers, watching Rook with a frown.

“Are you--you’re very busy, I know, but...do you truly not have the time?”

No. He doesn’t. And if John and Jacob manage to jog Joseph’s memory, Rook _really_ doesn’t want to be around for the aftermath. He’s not sure what Joseph will do to him, if he’ll be upset Rook didn’t tell him or if he’ll be angry that Rook tried to keep him from his “destiny.”

To be fair, if Rook lost his memory and didn’t remember he was responsible for hundreds of people being slaughtered like cattle, he definitely wouldn’t want someone to remind him. He’s justified.

“Sorry. I am. For...for everything. But no.”

It’s the only time Rook’s going to be able to say no. John and Jacob can’t pull guns on him, not when Joseph doesn’t know what’s going on. He’d freak out immediately and then they risk being the bad guys.

Not that, y’know, they aren’t bad guys. They’re just also smart enough to know when they’re backed into a corner.

“I...Thank you so much for everything. I’ll find you again once I’ve caught up with my brothers?”

“Maybe.” Rook smiles and it feels sad, must look sad too if Joseph’s wounded expression reflects that. “See you around, Joseph.”

Walking back feels a bit like a death march. Like treading through the desert did back when he was overseas. It hurts more than he thought it might, Rook really hadn’t expected to get attached like he did. Joseph without the cult, without the madness and the Biblical warnings...was nice. Was kind.

Genuinely seemed to like him.

But it couldn’t last. And Rook’s not sure, when he and Joseph do meet again, that he’s going to survive the encounter.

For a list of different reasons.

.O.

It is disconcerting to be captured and not wake up in immense pain. Rook’s used to coming out of the Bliss with various aches and pains, probably some new bruises or cuts. This time it just feels like he’s waking up from a nap. Not the best of naps, sure, just enough to leave him groggier than when he fell asleep, but a nap.

Not a physical fight that he’s never quite sure he won.

Rook sits up with a groan, swings his feet down to the ground and plants his elbows into his knees to cradle his head. He’s got an ache pounding behind one eye, typical for the Bliss, but wherever he is is dark, not a lot of light to stab him in the cornea.

Thank God for small miracles.

“You had every opportunity. And yet.”

“Oh, good, we’re going to do this.” Rook sits back against the pew he’d been laying on, grinds the palm of his hand into one eye. “You know, you could’ve just sent a letter or something. Radioed to tell me you wanted to talk.”

“And if I had, would you have come?”

“I don’t know.” Rook answers honestly on a sigh. “I don’t know, Joseph. A part of me wants to think I would have, another part of me knows I would have told you to go fuck yourself.”

Joseph surveys him from the pulpit, from where he’s thumbing through the pages of his book. The shirt is gone and the glasses are back and it’s so hard to reconcile this Joseph with the Joseph he knew for a few days that it just makes his headache worse. He’s so much sharper, hungrier, like his memory coming back made all the madness _worse_.

“You could have killed me. You _should_ have killed me.”

“And I’ll regret that until I die. But I didn’t. And look at what it got me.”

“Why?”

Rook groans and lets his head tip back, looks up at the ceiling of the church. He’d stared up at the ceiling when he first came here too, though that was mostly so he didn’t meet the eyes of people who violently wanted him out of their sacred space. He hears the footsteps and doesn’t budge, not even when Joseph sits down next to him, thighs pressed tight.

“I don’t know. Maybe it was an attack of conscious. You didn’t remember anything I would have killed you for. It would have been meaningless.” Rook rolls his head on his neck until he can catch sight of Joseph’s ear. “When I kill you, I want you to know why I’m putting a bullet in your brain.”

“Lies are not permitted on holy ground.”

Joseph’s hand curves gentle around his knee but his fingers dig in on either side, vicious and mean, striking at nerves Rook didn’t even know were sensitive. He curls inwards, yanks at Joseph’s wrist, is stopped by another hand cupping his cheek.

It stays gentle, though. No harshness to the touch as he forces Rook to make and hold eye contact.

“Why?”

“Because in another life, I might’ve liked you. I might’ve _really_ liked you. Without all this End of Days bullshit, you’re a nice guy, Joseph. Almost sweet. And maybe I wanted to hang onto that little bit of softness in the midst of the shitstorm you’ve caused in this county.”

Joseph surveys him for a long moment. It’s a bit like being in the past, when Rook was trying to cover his ass with a lie and Joseph was deciding whether or not to call him out for it. It hurts in a way he’s not used to, makes him wish for something he never really had. A friendship, an intimacy, no matter how shortly lived.

Which is why he doesn’t resist when Joseph urges him forwards. When he presses their lips together. Doesn’t fight the gentle press of Joseph’s tongue or force his hands back to his sides when they lift to clutch bare skin. Joseph’s hand lets go of his knee to cup his other cheek and Rook could argue he’s holding him in place, keeping them together.

But he’s not. Rook’s just as fucking culpable.

And after everything he’s been through...he deserves this shit. Deserves a little slice of normal.

“If you would just _join_ us--”

“I’m never going to join your stupid fucking cult.” Rook snaps, hand curving over the back of Joseph’s nape because of course he’s the type to ruin the mood. “Shut up and kiss me.”

He complies, shockingly enough. Or maybe not. This is the preacher who has Lust carved above his beltline. Joseph kisses like the end of time is already here, like they’re squeezing out precious moments while hellfire rains down around them. Clutches Rook to him, shows none of the restraint Rook thought that he might.

It shouldn’t surprise him. Guess it’s a surprise that it does.

“When all of this is over, I’m going to return the favor.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Rook tries to lean in for another kiss and is stopped, finally. Joseph’s hands hard on his cheeks, holding him in place with his touch and the blazing determination in his gaze.

“I promise you, Rook Wylde. When God’s righteous fire burns through this world and leaves behind nothing but ash...I am going to save you just as you saved me.”

Out of everything Joseph’s said, all his preachings and lessons that Rook’s caught as he goes around ruining the cult’s plans?

_That_ is the one thing he absolutely believes.


	2. Chapter 2

Joseph kept his end of the bargain.

Rook really shouldn’t be surprised, Joseph was nothing if not a man of his word. He’d wondered about it, on occasion. When John’s hand went limp on his wrist, when Jacob sighed one final breath, when Faith walked into the waters. Thought Joseph would never forgive him, wouldn’t dare save the one person who’d ruined everything.

But he did. And he kept saving him, over and over and over. When the walls were closing in around Rook and he wanted nothing more than to put a bullet in his mouth. When the world howled outside the bunker door and he sobbed for everything and everyone outside.

Joseph read the Book to him and held him close and didn’t allow Rook to tear himself apart from the inside out.

He changed Rook...and Rook likes to think, sometimes, that he changed Joseph as well.

It certainly seems like it, on occasion. When they finally emerge into the world once more--half necessity and half need to see something other than the same walls they’ve both seen for the past seven years--Joseph is different. Softer, maybe. Echoes of what he once was, back when he wasn’t the Joseph that Rook knew.

The Project is different too. No more guns, no more bloodshed. It’s difficult to cobble together who survived and stayed loyal, but once it starts it’s a downhill roll that just keeps going. People come from all over and before Rook knows it, they’ve carved out a space for themselves in the new world.

In their New Eden.

Really, he should have expected something would happen. Something that would change everything. Nothing really goes right for Rook for too long, he’s been taught this over and over. Something was always going to wreck the almost peace he’d started to find.

He just really never figured it would be a _child_.

_Joseph’s_ child.

“His name is Ethan.” Joseph says softly, hands on the shoulders of boy who can’t be more than ten or so. Maybe older, but none of the kids roaming around now grew up in the healthiest conditions, they all look heartbreakingly young and fragile. “His mother was...she is no longer with us.”

“You had a kid.” Rook says numbly, meeting the boy’s curious stare and carefully setting aside the arrows he’d been sharpening. “A blood child. Like...you physically created a child.”

“Even the strongest among us have moments of weakness.”

“And his mother?” Rook winces when the boy’s eyes shutter, wishing Joseph had brought this up when the kid was not right in front of them.

Like, you know, the _seven_ _years_ they spent trapped together talking about literally everything under the sun.

“She had Faith.” Rook grits his teeth in a snarl but Joseph continues on, voice even. “Until she did not. She chose to forsake the Project out of mindless fear. But Ethan has now returned to us.”

“Right.”

Joseph taps the boy’s shoulders gently with both hands before pushing him forwards slightly. There’s a strange emptiness to how he moves, the way he stares at Rook.

“I have things that need to be done. I’ll leave him in your care, Rook. I know that you will ensure he grows as he is supposed to.”

“Hey, what the--Joseph!”

Rook sighs when Joseph slips out of the tent without a backwards glance, sitting down heavily from where he’d pushed to his feet in panic. He shoves a hand through his hair, sending it into disarray, and is tempted to fist in in frustration when the kid just _stares_.

He likes kids. He does. Always wanted some of his own. But wanting a kid of his own and wanting to raise Joseph’s for him are two very different things and Rook momentarily wants to chase Joseph down. Shake some sense into him and demand he be a real fucking parent.

But he remembers a story that made bile rise in his throat and Joseph’s even, steady gaze. Madness made sanity by a belief that what had happened was right and just.

He cannot allow that to happen again.

“Hi, Ethan.” He says tiredly, offering up a hand. “My name is Rook. It’s very nice to meet you.”

Ethan stares for a moment longer before he takes Rook’s hand. His palms are small, a bit clammy when they shake, and they tremble just a bit on the release.

“My Father trusts you.”

“He does. God knows why.” Rook rummages in the pack next to him and holds out some jerky he’d been handed this morning to keep him full as he worked. “Here. You look hungry.”

Ethan settles in closer to his side than Rook thought he would. Presses up next to him like he’s starved for touch just as much as he’s starved for food. He all but devours the meat, teeth ripping into it with soft little noises of almost pain.

“Hey, hey,” Rook nudges him gently, Ethan’s eyes too wide when he glances up. “No one is gonna take it from you. And I’ve got plenty more. Don’t eat too fast or you’re gonna get sick.”

“I haven’t eaten in days.” Ethan admits softly, Rook paling and handing over another few handfuls of jerky in response.

“Where have you been? What have you been doing?”

“Looking for my father. When my mother got sick,” Ethan pauses to swallow harshly, “she told me to go on. Keep looking for him until I found him. It was...very hard.”

Rook takes note of the filthy state of his clothes. The grease of his hair and the scratches, bruises, and dirt that litter the exposed skin of his face and arms. It certainly _looks_ like he’s been wandering for days, and something clenches in his chest at the thought of such a young kid out on his own in the middle of the world.

People came together in the wake of a tragedy, as they’re wont to do. But there are still skeezeballs out there who would happily take advantage of a kid wandering alone.

“Well, you’re safe now. I got you.” He pats awkwardly at Ethan’s back and sighs when the kid instantly leans into it.

Touch starved. Desperate for affection. Clearly latching onto Rook because it’s not like Joseph is going to start being an A+ parent any time soon.

“Finish eating and then we’ll see about getting you a bath and some new clothes, okay?”

“Do you think my father will come back?”

“Yeah, he’ll--uh--he’ll be back. He does important stuff and sometimes it means he has to be gone but he always comes back.”

Leaving out the fact that usually he drags Rook with him. Without giving him much warning or option but to tag along like some sort of bodyguard.

He feels like a mom explaining why dad’s always at work instead of being home with the family and Rook’s annoyed, once more, that Joseph’s put him in yet another uncomfortable situation without so much as a “could you be bothered?”

“You’ll stay even when he’s here, right?”

There’s something in Ethan’s voice that Rook doesn’t really want to touch. Something aching and angry, one glimpse into the hell that could possibly be his teenage years.

But Rook’s always been up for a challenge, and wrangling Seeds is, unfortunately, one of his specialties.

“Absolutely.” He slings an arm around Ethan’s thin--too thin, worryingly thin--shoulders, pulls him in for a single squeeze. “You’re stuck with me now, kiddo.”

.O.

“He admires you.”

Rook dunks his clothes back into the water to wash away the soap, deciding to play nice and not bother feigning ignorance.

“He needs a male figure to look up to. Might as well be me, I guess. Someone’s gotta look out for the kid.”

The _”it certainly won’t be y_ ou” is left hanging in the air between them.

Joseph’s feet pad soft on the riverbank, making his way down to Rook’s side. He wrings his clothes out, is just turning to set them into the basket when Joseph cups a hand under his chin, fingers flexing in the beard Rook hasn’t yet decided if he’s going to keep growing or not.

It’s not like razors are just laying around, but he could shave it, if he really wanted to. He knows how to use a knife at the right angle.

“So we’re still doing this?” Rook mutters once Joseph has let him lean back from the kiss, watching him with narrowed eyes. “Thought this would vanish after we came topside.”

“We will never truly be separate. Our souls are one now after our time together while the world burned.” Joseph pulls him in for another kiss, just as chaste and gentle as the first.

If Rook didn’t know better, didn’t know _Joseph_ better, he’d say it almost felt shy. Like Joseph was asking for permission.

But Joseph Seed stopped asking for permission for anything a very long time ago.

“It seems foolish to not allow ourselves physical indulgences of our love.”

“We don’t love each other. You’re not capable of it.”

“I have always loved you. And I think you loved me too, for a time.” Joseph’s words slice through Rook because it’s true, it’s fucking true and he hates it.

Maybe it wasn’t really love, but it could have been. And the knowledge that he _could_ love someone like Joseph at any point makes him want to break something.

“What do you want, Joseph?”

“I have to go. Our people are hungry, they have _been_ hungry. We cannot find enough food and I fear, soon, that we will be at risk in our new paradise.

He’s right. Rook’s been hunting as best he can, but a lot of the animals are too irradiated to safely eat. And what he does manage to find is paltry compared to the amount of people that need to be fed. It’ll get better as he has more people who can hunt with him, but for right now there’s only a small handful of them that are even slightly capable with a bow and arrow.

“You think you’re gonna find better food somewhere?”

“God has been whispering of help.”

Rook grits his teeth and shakes his head, ignoring the way Joseph’s eyes narrow. They always do when he rejects the preachings. He doesn’t want to hear what Joseph’s mania is telling him anymore, not when he doesn’t have to.

“Whatever. Spare me the details. Just don’t get dead while you’re out there alone.”

“Of course.” He moves in close, close enough that Rook can feel the heat of his body, close enough that he can smell the lingering scent of fire on Joseph’s skin and hair. “Before I leave though…”

Rook sighs, reaches out with his hands and finds Joseph’s hips. Partially to stop him from moving closer but partially because this scenario is all too familiar to him. The heat in Joseph’s eyes and the shift of his body and the way his voice has dropped low, whispering, wanting.

“What do you want?” He asks again.

“Just this.” Joseph’s hand strokes down his chest, meaning very clear in the scrape of his nails. “For now.”

It’s quick and rushed and just a bit harsh, like everything is between them. They had time, on occasion, in the bunker. Time when minutes and hours drifted by in a haze of whatever pleasure they could wring out of each other. Moments of happiness in the midst of suffering.

They don’t have the same time now and it’s only a few minutes later, it feels, when Rook is rising to his feet and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as Joseph pulls his clothes back to rights. His body aches in a way he’s not used to--it really has been a while, between rebuilding the Project and trying to figure out where they go in this new world--and Rook leans into the pain as Joseph pulls him in for another kiss.

Keeps him grounded. Keeps him from attaching himself to the one person that could kill them both if the voice in his head told him to.

And keeps him alert enough that he hears the sharp inhale even when he somehow missed the footsteps that must have preluded it.

Rook runs his hands over himself on instinct when he jerks back and looks up to where Ethan is standing on the top of the hill that slopes down towards the water. He’s decent, he made sure he was--and so is Joseph--but habits are hard to break. Especially in the face of a kid.

“Hey, buddy. What’s up, did you need something?”

“Maryann told me to tell you that dinner will be ready soon.” Ethan’s eyes are cold when he glances towards Joseph but they immediately soften when he turns his gaze back to Rook. “It’s the elk that you hunted yesterday.”

“Should be a pretty big meal then.” Rook nods, tries not to act as awkward as he feels when he steps away from Joseph and grabs for the basket that holds his still wet clothes. “Let’s head on back and see if she’ll let us get a plate early.”

“You may. I need to go.”

Rook turns halfway up the slope, watching the way Joseph looks right past him towards Ethan.

“Be good for Rook in my absence.”

“Will you be gone long?”

“I have been commanded to go and find something. I do not know how long it will take me to do so.”

Ethan offers Joseph a dull stare that says the question was more out of curiosity than general care, before turning his attention to Rook.

“We should go.”

“Yeah, I’ll--uh--I guess I’ll see you...when I see you?”

“If God is merciful.” Joseph inclines his head and leaves Rook wondering just what in the fuck is going on inside his brain.

Nothing good, he’s certain of that.

But Ethan’s holding a hand out expectantly and Rook takes it, climbing to the top of the hill and taking particular notice of the way Ethan doesn’t bother glancing back at Joseph before pulling him towards the compound. They get about halfway there, long enough for the water left on Rook’s clothes to start sticking his shirt to his skin as it leaks through the basket, before Ethan speaks up.

“Do you love my father?”

“I dunno, kiddo.” Rook says honestly, shrugging when Ethan turns accusatory eyes up at him. “Can’t hate him, not when I spent however long with him underground. But I don’t know about love.”

“I saw you kissing him.”

Rook sends up a brief prayer that that’s _all_ Ethan saw. Maybe God doesn’t always want to wreck his shit every chance He gets. And Ethan’s just enough of a little shit he’d have mentioned it if he glimpsed something more.

“Yeah. We need to have a birds and bees talk?”

“I know what people do when they’re in love. Or lust.” Ethan answers testily, just enough of a snap that Rook gently pulls him to a stop.

“Hey. I feel like maybe you want to talk about something.”

Ethan stubbornly crosses his arms over his chest, pouting at something in the distance with his head turned away from Rook. A thought flashes across Rook’s mind--fuck, he looks just like John when he does this--but he banishes it before it can bring any sort of sadness over the past. He sets the basket aside and kneels down, bringing them almost to eye level.

It takes a moment but Ethan finally speaks, grits out words between his teeth, still staring off to the side.

“He’s not a good person.”

“That’s not really for you or me to decide.” Rook says gently, even though, yes, he _is_ actually someone who can decide that given all that he saw before the world went to hell.

“My mom told me. Told me about stuff that happened before the bombs came down. How he was back then.” Ethan drops his arms to his side and clenches his fists. “She said he would have hurt her, would have hurt me if he’d found out. That’s why she left when she realized she was pregnant with me.”

Rook doesn’t have a response to that. A part of him thinks it’s true, think Joseph would have absolutely eliminated anything that would have threatened his plans, his position in the cult. But a small part of him, a part that remembers Joseph as soft and gentle and lacking half his memories, wants to argue that it’s not true. That it wouldn’t have happened.

“He’ll hurt you too.”

“I’m not very easily hurt.”

Ethan swings his gaze around finally and Rook isn’t surprised--hurt, a bit, but not surprised--to see the shine of tears across his eyes.

“I don’t want him to hurt you. He doesn’t get to hurt people just because God talks to him.”

“Hey, I’m gonna be okay, alright? I’ll be just fine.”

“People told me he tried to hurt you before.”

Goddamnit. Rook knew there were whispers about him and Joseph from the followers, but he figured they’d have the decency to keep them as just that. Whispers. Something meant to be shared in secret and _not_ within earshot of a fucking child.

“He did. But a lot of stuff changed. That was almost 9 years ago.”

“How do you know he won’t try to hurt you again?”

A good question. A question Rook has asked himself over and over and over again. In the quiet moments of the night when Joseph is peacefully asleep at his side, in the noontime sun when he catches Joseph staring at him. He’ll never truly recover from the way the cult hunted him down with a single minded purpose.

But that doesn’t mean he’s about to project his bullshit onto Ethan.

“I gotta have faith.” It’s a bullshit answer and Ethan’s unimpressed stare tells Rook he knows that too. “That’s what we do, right? We have faith that everything will be okay?”

“That shouldn’t be how it works.”

“Yeah,” Rook pushes himself to his feet with a sigh and hitches the basket back onto his hip, offering up a hand that Ethan takes and holds just a bit too tightly. “I know. But it’s how it is. And until we can think of something better...that’s just how it’s gotta be.”

.O.

Life goes on. Somehow. Ethan grows up into a teenager and then into a man that stands nearly as tall as Joseph. He’s different, though, and Joseph likes to murmur into Rook’s ear that he may be a Seed by blood, but he has a bit of Wylde in him.

Nature over nurture. But if it means Ethan isn’t as batshit crazy as the rest of the Seeds, Rook will take it.

His relationship with Joseph is never anything closer than strained, but Rook can’t exactly blame him. Not when Joseph’s little trip to figure out God’s plan led him to living in a ramshackle cabin at the base of a waterfall for years and years. Rook had tried, a few times, to convince him to come back. That there was no reason to stay and guard the tree like he did.

But Joseph was insistent that someone needed to watch and Rook...can’t blame him.

He’s still not sure what he saw that day Joseph asked him to watch one of the Eden’s Gate members eat the fruit it bore. Whether it was a fever dream from the Bliss that tainted the water there--busted barrels at the top that eroded their contents into the very stone and air--or if it really was God’s judgment. Joseph seems convinced it is, a gift and a curse all in one, but Rook can’t say for certain either way.

All he knows is it provided enough food to keep them all alive through the rougher parts of the years and he’s grateful for small mercies.

Even if he’d backed away from the fruit in Joseph’s palm with a scowl, one hand planted on Ethan’s chest to keep him behind his body.

“I don’t want it.” He’d spat, Joseph’s brows furrowing and fingers curling into the meat of the apple.

“It is an honor--”

“And if it goes wrong, then what?” Rook had snapped, Ethan curiously peering around him with his fingers tangled tight in Rook’s clothes. “Then you’re the only thing Ethan has left and I don’t know about you, but I don’t love that idea.”

So he hadn’t accepted the gift. And Joseph, for once, hadn’t really fought him on it.

Then the world caught on fire again and not in the way that Joseph would have predicted. Rook had been in gentle, cautious contact with the people at Prosperity. There’s a lot of familiar faces there and some that aren’t too pleased to see him on the opposite side for once. But no one’s threatened to kill him, though there have been some tears and whispered fierce threats against Joseph.

They’re all still good people. Trying their best in a world that’s not always kind. And that’s why it lights Rook up inside when they’re attacked.

Highwaymen. Cowards taking advantage of people at their weakest point. Rook burns from the inside out when he visits Prosperity in the aftermath, sees the fear in the faces of the kids and the dejection in the adults. Sees how the hope for something better is fading with a fierce reminder of “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”

“Are you going to fight?”

Rook looks up from his pack--god, it’s been so long since he’s had to pack weapons. He got too used to just taking his bow and his medpack with him when he left the compound. He’s just outside the gates now, with some guns and ammo tucked into a knapsack one of the Chosen had quietly handed him without meeting his eyes.

And Ethan is staring at him with an unreadable expression.

“Yeah,” he answers honestly, setting everything down to push to his feet. “I am. Someone’s got to.”

“You’ve fought enough for hundreds of people.” Ethan says, a scowl marring his features until he looks too much like Jacob. “Let someone else put their life on the line. The Chosen or--or the people of Prosperity or--”

“I can’t do that. And you know I can’t.”

“Then I’m going with you.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Rook!”

“Ethan.” Rook returns his furious stare with a calm one, all too used to Ethan’s lashing out after his hellish teenage years.

Joseph took the brunt of his anger, but he shifted it onto Rook on occasion. A fireball looking for any sort of target to incinerate.

“Someone needs to watch over the people here. Make sure they’re safe and protected.”

“That’s _supposed_ to be Joseph’s job.” Ethan snaps venomously, arms crossing over his narrow chest and bottom lip shoved out petulantly. “But he’s not even willing to come off the mountain. It’s not _fair_.”

“Life isn’t fair.” Rook reminds him softly, patiently. “I’ll come back. I always do. And trust me, the Highwaymen can’t have anything on what Eden’s Gate used to throw at me back in the day. And I’m still here, aren’t I?”

Ethan rushes at him so suddenly he nears knocks Rook onto his ass with the hug. He clamps on tight, clinging like he used to when he was more than a few feet shorter and a hell of a lot younger. Rook hugs him back just as fiercely, hugging him in close until his body goes limp in the hold.

“Don’t go alone.” He pleads into Rook’s shirt and Rook sighs with a nod.

“Alright. I’ll take some of the Chosen. Unless I feel like it’s too dangerous for them.”

Ethan steps back and Rook visibly sees him collect himself. Sees him set his shoulders in a firm line and swallow back any lingering sadness. He’s going to be a good leader for New Eden in Rook and Joseph’s absence, he already has been when Rook leaves to visit the waterfall.

Sometimes Rook wonders what Ethan would be if he was left to only have Joseph as a parent. What he would become. Nothing near the level-headed man he’s turned out to be, probably letting those feelings of abandonment twist and rot inside him until they stained his very soul.

He wasn’t happy to have a kid dumped into his care all those years ago. But damn if he isn’t proud that he took a bad situation and made the best of it.

Again.

He’s right, in the end. The Highwaymen aren’t prepared for the attacks in the slightest. Not when Rook’s more used to the terrain, used to jumping down onto people who’d kill him on sight if they saw him first. And the Chosen he picks are those who took the fruit, took Joseph’s offering. He swears there are times they do things that no human should be able to do.

Rook might be jealous if he didn’t understand that a deal with Joseph Seed and anything he offers is just as good as a deal with the devil.

He beats them back enough that they start to panic. That he starts hearing rumors whispered from guards right before he shoves a knife into their eyes or puts an arrow through their skulls. Rook knows that words can be just as powerful as weapons, and he’s unsurprised to find that eventually some of the people are able to take and keep some of the outposts without any more attacks.

Who wants to occupy a place when there’s constant risk of someone dropping out of the shadows with murder on their mind?

Rook ignores the fact that he’s using a lot of Jacob’s training to do this. That he’s definitely earning the Wrath that will never truly fade from his skin. He’s _helping_ and he finds it really fitting that he’s using the shit that Eden’s Gate used to berate him for, what they brainwashed him into doing, to do it.

John and Jacob would be fucking pissed. Or they’d find it hilarious. He’ll never really know.

He should have been suspicious when Prosperity was left alone for a while. When he didn’t receive any new reports of attacks, when they’d been living peacefully. It tingled in the back of his mind, a worry that had him idly checking the walls when he’d return to the compound, counting the amount of people that remained behind to defend the homestead when he left on attacks.

But he got lost in his wrath. Got lost in bringing pain to anyone who dared threaten the gentle sense of peace he’d finally found after so long.

And when he returns to New Eden to find it in flames, he feels like he’s watching Fall’s End under attack once more.

Mickey and Lou aren’t nearly as hard to kill as the Seeds were. There’s no Bliss, no Judges, no aerial battle that makes him sick just thinking about it. Just Rook and them and everything he’s learned against kids that never had a chance. What Chosen that remained join the fight and it’s almost too easy to beat everyone back.

And then he’s staring down the barrel at another heartbreaking decision.

But he’s not a fool. He saw the agony that Joseph went through living without his siblings. Still sees the hate that flashes across his face on occasion when he doesn’t think Rook is watching. When he dreams about them or speaks about what it would be like if they were here with them.

The corpses are still warm when he catches a Chosen by the arm, asking desperately for the one face he hasn’t seen in all the chaos.

“He went to the waterfall.” She says and Rook’s heart sinks into his stomach. “He went to get the Father.”

Rook nearly runs himself ragged trying to rush to get there. It won’t be good, no matter what. His lungs are burning, legs aching, body begging him to stop, rest, just for a moment. But he can’t. Pushes himself harder and faster until he’s tearing through Joseph’s shack and up the mountain path like a madman.

Ethan’s under the tree with Joseph when he comes on them, standing tall with his back to Rook. Joseph clearly sees him approach over his shoulder but there’s something in his eyes that warns Rook to stay quiet for a moment.

“You should have insisted he take it! He won’t survive the fight--none of them will!”

“It was Rook’s decision. And he refused the gift.”

“He’s going to die! And it’s going to be all your _fault_!”

“You could have stayed. Fought at his side.” Joseph gestures to the tree and Rook’s heart sinks. “But you refused the gift as well.”

Shit. He’d always wondered but he didn’t want to ask. Didn’t figure it was his business to ask. Ethan was, after all, a grown man now and it wasn’t like he needed Rook’s permission to do anything, much less something his blood father had done.

“I didn’t want to be like _you_.” Ethan spits, hands clenched at his sides. “Rook refused and I did too because I’d pick him. In a million different ways, I’d pick him.”

“In that, we are in agreement.” Joseph says quietly, softly, before finally gesturing for Ethan to turn around.

The hug really does take Rook off his feet this time, but he blames that on a combination of Ethan’s exuberance and his own exhaustion. He lets Ethan curl into him, quiet noises buried in his shoulder that both of them pretend aren’t sobs. Pets a hand over his back like he did when Ethan was still young enough to wake up crying for his mother.

He meets Joseph’s eyes as he approaches with a tiredness that goes deeper than his bones, straight down into his very soul.

“I’m getting a little tired of having to be Hell.”

“It is what you are meant to be. Harbinger of death and destruction.” Joseph says it like it’s fact. “I admit, though, it is...pleasant to have all that wrath directed at someone other than me.”

“You deserved it. They did too, I guess. In a way. Just want people to fuck off and leave me alone.”

“I imagine you shall get your wish now.”

He’s got a point. After all that, Rook doubts any other Highwaymen factions are going to try for Hope County any time soon. Or anyone else looking to cause trouble. The people here haven’t forgotten what it means to fight for their lives. God knows he hasn’t.

“The compound will recover.” Rook says softly, trying not to let the past or the memories of fighting and blood drag him too far down. “They were already starting to put out the fires when I left. We can re-build, Prosperity will probably lend a hand.”

Rook can’t imagine they wouldn’t. Not with how much New Eden had helped them out when it came to turning back all the attacks against the homestead.

“The world is changing.” Joseph murmurs, kneeling in front of them both, Ethan’s head twisting to watch carefully. “I have heard God once more. My job is finished. I was to protect from those who would threaten New Eden. That was my task. And I did so by bringing you here with me.”

“What?”

Because Rook can’t be understanding correctly. All this, all the torture and mayhem that Joseph piled onto this county, onto _him_ for years and year...it’s all done now? One last fight, that didn’t even seem all that difficult in comparison to the shit he’d been through before...and it’s over?

“Just like that?”

“Occasionally God commands unto us tasks that are difficult. And occasionally, the tasks are almost far too easy.”

Ethan makes a noise of disgust into Rook’s shoulder, pushes out of his hold and starts down the mountain without looking back. Rook can understand his anger--Joseph fucks off to a mountain for however many years and then, in the blink of an eye, all his tasks are somewhat done. Like they couldn’t have been done when Ethan was a boy and needed his father most.

He rises, Joseph holding out a hand to help, and standing brings them closer together than Rook intended. He doesn’t push away, though, too exhausted, draping his arms over Joseph’s shoulders and letting the older man tip their foreheads together like he did so long ago.

“What do we do now? Where do we go from here?”

“Wherever we want.”

“Easy as that, huh?”

“I told you once that I would save you. And I did. Our debt is, as far as I and God are concerned, paid in full now. You owe nothing to me or to Him. My tasks are complete...as are yours. You are free to do as you wish, Rook, whether that includes me or not.”

“And you’d just let me walk away?” Rook snorts, Joseph’s eyes going half-lidded with memories of the past that Rook know they’re both thinking of.

“Sometimes the best thing to do is walk away.”

He’s right. Rook could leave everything. Prosperity would welcome him, even if they wouldn’t all immediately trust him at the very first second. He could catch up on missed time with all his old friends, watch his new godbaby grow up, actually get to know the goddaughter he held with shaking hands so many years ago. Rook could be Rook again, just another guy living his life and rebuilding after the world shook apart.

But he knows, deep down inside, he can’t. Can’t walk away from the people he’s grown to care about. Away from Ethan and the faithful who have become friends. Can’t walk away from Joseph after all that they’ve gone through together.

“Well...good thing I’ve never been great at making the best decisions, huh?”

Joseph’s smile is blinding and his kiss tastes like tears and Rook thinks maybe, just maybe, this will be a chance for both of them. It took a very long time...but maybe he’ll meet the Joseph he met years and years ago. One who isn’t driven by a holy insanity. The Joseph who’s just...a guy.

He thinks maybe, if that’s true, maybe it was all worth it. In the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *slams fist on the table* Ethan would have been a good person if his father figure wasn't Joseph and I will DIE on this hill.


End file.
